Portable Document Scanner, 5-inch Screen, Support Offline Scan, Auto Flatten, Split & Deskew, Convert Images to Word/Excel/PDF, PC only, 1860TP

I bought this for my husband who needed to scan some historical records larger than our regular flatbed scanner. As others have noted the software looks and feels a bit dated (think Windows 95) but is nonetheless fairly intuitive. Also, we haven't yet used the "auto flatten" feature or OCR as the records we've scanned so far are large sheets - not books - and we do other photo editing (cropping, contrast, etc.) with other software. We are, however, impressed with the quality of the raw images this scanner creates. Even using the default "medium" quality setting everything is sharp and crisp. The items we've scanned include 19th century handwriting which is now faded and faint, yet shows up nicely on the scans. In some cases it's actually easier to read the scan than the original. Bottom line: this is a great no-frills overhead scanner that gives good value for the price.

I'm currently researching the history of graphics. For the most part, I'm building a library of texts with the classic analytical graphics: Tukey's EXPLORATORY DATA ANALYSIS, Wainer's GRAPHIC DISCOVERY, and Rendgen's THE MINARD SYSTEM, etc. Minard, by the way, is the creator of the famous graph of Napoleon's army shrinking on its way into and the way back from Moscow.Larger format books like Rendgen's have 2 page graphics which I need to capture, that are wider than affordable flat bed scanners. I bought my eloam scanner to capture larger than flat bed graphics. I am happy enough with this purchase not to return the scanner. But I'm not doing backflips.Why? Because the scanner is a challenge to use. Photo 1 gives an example: When images are full-bleed (i.e., go all the way to the edge of the page, the eloam's software loses the image's edge, and kind of freaks out and jams spline curves. into the image). For example, follow the red line from the book to the screen in Photo 1 and you will see what happens. This can be overcome, but because the scanner attempts to flatten the image after it scans, pages still in books are difficult to capture.The full bleed workaround is to create an artificial margin outside the image/book. Can be full bleed to top, bottom, left, right, and middle of TBLR. So this workaround = time consuming. As a practical matter, it is easiest to cut the facing pages out of the book, and then to scan them flat, one along side the other. See Photo 2. I also turn off the page splitting by choosing "No flatten" with "Deskew & Crop" enabled. See red rectangle in Photo 3 for this scan option.Pros:1. Well thought out product, in particular the foot pedal is great. eloam has accomplished a lot.2. The software should work well for simple books without full-bleed images.3. Having worked with software engineers for a long time, I am cautiously optimistic that eloam's software will imrpove.4. Solved my wider than scanner problem for capturing analytical graphs.5. Tech support is strong. Michael at eloam got on WhatsApp with me and sent detailed screen shots. = AMAZING!!!Cons:1. Rapid scanning in eloam's demonstration videos is not possible on the images I'm capturing.2. Product is complex. The software is making on-the-fly decisions that take trial and error, to harness productively.3. Light scatter is terrible on glossy pages. I wish the scanner came with a glass pane that could counter glossiness.4. The rubber pad that comes with the scanner is too bumpy. I'm going to replace it with ... something.This is a good product that could be an amazing product. I'm looking forward to software updates!!!

My computer meets the requirements listed in the manual; however, neither the scanner nor the software worked. The scanner couldn't/didn't communicate with my computer and the software continually crashed. It's possible the particular device I received was defective and that future customers will have little/no issues with the devices they receive. The seller was quick to respond and attempted to solve the issue. Unfortunately, the device has not become usable. I am returning for a refund.

Actually, I bought this scanner _only_ because I wanted to use it in stand-alone mode using a uSD card, so I haven't tried the Windows software they provide. It's very easy to use in standalone mode: it just saves every scan as a JPG in the uSD card. However, none of the special features like deskewing, fixing the perspective, etc., work in that mode, so you have to be prepared to do the appropriate post-processing of the images if you want those features. (Or if they do work, I couldn't understand how.)My only real problem is that the viewline of the camera is _not quite_ perpendicular to the surface on which the document you're scanning rests. This means, for example, that a rectangular page becomes a parallelogram in the scan. I work around this problem by tilting the whole scanner slightly by sticking stuff underneath its front end.But you shouldn't have to do that. the device should either be constructed so that it _is_ looking straight down on the target document, or else there should be adjustments you can make to level the scanner.Update: I noticed yesterday too that the foot-pedal has started to deteriorate (after less than a 1000 scans), and sometimes I have to hit it 3-4 times to make a scan. Which is irritating, because sometimes you get to the end of the document and realize that missed a page or two, or scanned a page or two twice. It's not enough for a downcheck, since there's also a remove pushbutton that can be used instead of the foot-pedal, but it's still inconvenient!

We had this working, but now it does not recognize the camera, the USB cable, or any of the controls for menu. It is now a very expensive piece of trash, which only got used four or five times.

I bought this scanner to use scanning bound historical records. The software is easy to use and the quality is excellent for the money spent. The flattening feature works surprisingly well. The included foot-switch is handy when using both hands to hold a book open. Scanning in B&W, it takes about 2 seconds per page. I can scan just about as fast as I can turn the pages. Color mode is nearly as fast. I've only processed to pdf files and it works great. I've not tried Word or Excel. The manufacturer followed up with an email that included the most recent manual and a useful tip on cropping. So far, I've scanned about 200 pages and am impressed with the speed and quality.